Frozen in Time
by Jinni
Summary: 500 years ago, the Council did something unthinkable. Now Xander is waking up in a world unlike any he had ever imagined. BtVSFirefly.
1. Cold

Title: Cold  
Series: Frozen in Time  
Author: Jinni FR15  
Disclaimer: All things BtVS and all things Firefly belong to Joss Whedon, et al.  
Prompt 6 – Cold – at joss100  
Claim: X/Kaylee  
Wordcount: 429

x x x x

It was cold the day that they put him into stasis with the others. That much he remembered, even through the haze of terror that had descended on his brain. The Council was once again betraying them. Betraying all of them. Buffy, Willow…even Dawnie. The Council, different than what it had been under Giles' watchful hand, had decided that they, once again, knew what was best for the world.

And that was to keep its protectors safe for another time, now that things had settled down in this one.

Watchers. Slayers. Confidants and researchers. They were rounded up one and all – and frozen at that moment in time. Not even a decade after they defeated The First and destroyed Sunnyhell.

Frozen.

Come to find out, they were kept safe. Secret and guarded in the Council's inner sanctum.

They were kept safe… for a time.

But things changed on Earth. A lot of things. The more years that went by, the more the Earth's resources were taken up. And the worries of the Council turned to more mundane matters and away from the supernatural. The demons had fled this dimension once they saw that humans were doing a far better job of destroying themselves than they ever could.

And so the heroes were forgotten for a time.

Found hundreds of years later, by collectors, they were all separated and passed from hand to hand.

Most were taken off of Earth-That-Was.

Most.

They were show pieces – see the humans, frozen in time, the last remnants of those that lived on Earth-That-Was. Genuine relics of the twenty-first century. Oddities. Freaks. Rare and valuable….items – not people in stasis, still preserved and waiting to be woken – they were nothing more than decorations in the homes of the wealthy. The famous.

But decorations change hands. Times come and go.

And so it was that Xander Harris opened his eyes for the first time in over five hundred years, gasping for breath, cold and shivering. He blinked his one, good eye at the woman that stood in front of him with a worried look on her face.

"Cap'n?" she called out, presumably to someone that he couldn't see. His ears felt clogged and he was panicking – something he could judge by the ever increasing speed of his heart.

"What, little Kaylee?"

Kaylee. That was the name of this angel standing in front of him. The one that had woken him up after only God knew how long in the Council's little coffin o' fun.

"I think I might have…accidentally…woken our cargo up."

Wait a second.

Cargo?

x x End Ficlet x x


	2. Righteous Anger Does No Good

Title: Righteous Anger Does No Good  
Series: Frozen in Time  
Author: Jinni  
Rated: FR15  
Disclaimer: All things BtVS and Firefly belong to Joss Whedon, et al.  
Prompt 10 - Anger - at joss100  
Claim: Kaylee/Xander

x x x x

Cargo?

Xander couldn't believe his ears. He was frickin' cargo?

He opened his mouth to express his seriously righteous indignation over being called that, but the only sound that came out was, "Guuh?"

Apparently being put in stasis was hard on the old vocal cords.

"You just...hold on right there," the woman that had 'woken' him stammered. "Doc'll be right down to check on you."

"Gorram it!" Someone else yelled - a someone that he couldn't see.

And what the heck was 'gorram it' supposed to mean anyway?

"Just had to go messin' with things, didn't you little Kaylee?"

"Cap'n, I didn't mean to."

"Don't suppose you did," the mystery speaker continued. "But what does matter right now is that the priceless artifiact we were carrying is now no longer artifact...ish."

Artifact? Xander couldn't decide if that was better or worse than being called cargo. He shifted, trying to sit up, only to be held down by a light touch on his chest.

"Don't go movin' about just yet," the woman smiled down at him sympathetically. "You've been asleep a long time. Best let the Doc look you over."

And then it hit him. Stasis meant that time had gone by. Time...

How long had passed? Were these people part of the Council? They didn't look or talk like it, but that also didn't mean a damn thing, in his opinion.

And where were the others?

He licked his lips and managed to force a single word out of his lungs. "Others?"

"Others?" her eyebrows went up. "No - its just you that we're transportin'."

Xander's eyes shut, a heavy sigh escaping him. Just him. Just...him.

"But there are a few other...um...artifacts like you out there,"

His eyes opened, hopefully searching her face. A few others? Just a few? So many had been put in stasis... and there were only a few remaining?

God, what had happened?

"That's enough, Kaylee. Let's let the Doc look him over."

Xander's gaze flickered to the man that had joined them, on the opposite side of the stasis chamber from Kaylee. He looked like a doctor. Prim. Proper. All that stuff that doctor's were supposed to be.

"Vitals are fine," the doctor announced after a few minutes. "But I'd like to take him to --"

"Take him, then," the voice Xander had come to recognize as the 'Captain' ordered. "I s'pose I need to call our contact and make up some excuse for what happened that won't get us all dead."

Xander winced as Kaylee and the doctor helped him out of the small stasis chamber, catching only a glimpse of the back of the Captain's head as he exited the...

Where in the hell was he?

x x End x x


	3. Our Own Private Miracle

Title: Our Own Private Miracle  
Series: Frozen in Time  
Author: Jinni (jinni. FR15  
Disclaimer: All things BtVS belong to Joss Whedon, et al. Oddly enough, he also owns Firefly. Go, Joss, Go!

Prompt - Resurrection - at joss100

Claim: Kaylee/Xander

x x x

Kaylee watched the stranger sleep. Alexander Harris is what the artifact had been labeled as. She supposed it was his name. He didn't much look like an Alexander though. That kind of name made her think of men like Simon. Men that wore their very proper britches too tight. Not that Simon was a bad sort. He just won't very relaxed or easy-going.

Alexander, with his too-long hair didn't seem like he was uptight. He'd been a touch weirded out when she'd told him that he was on a spaceship, though.

And that he was a good five hundred years past the last time he had opened his eyes.

She felt bad about that. About being the one to break the news to him.

Kaylee sighed, turning to Simon. "You sure he should be sleepin'? He just got through being asleep for hundreds of years, Simon."

Over his shoulder, Simon met her eyes for a brief moment, giving her a tiny smile. "Stasis isn't the same thing as sleeping. Right now, sleep is what his body needs. He's fine."

She hoped so. It was her fault that he was awake at all, seeing as how she was the one that accidentally pressed the button that freed him from stasis. The Cap'n won't happy 'bout that, neither. Fact was, he glared at her so hard after he got done with their contact that she'd felt like she'd done had a hole bored straight through her. Sorries weren't going to work in this situation.

Alexander couldn't go back into stasis because, for one thing, it just wouldn't be human to do that to him again. Bad enough it had been done in the first place, perpetuated over the years until he was just a thing and not a person, but to do it again? Not even the Cap'n and his business-mindedness thought that was a good idea. Oddly enougn, it was Jayne that had spoken out the most loudly 'bout it. Somethin' about it not being right to shut a man up like that and he wouldn't have no parts of it.

Jayne was ever the surprise.

All that aside, they just didn't have the right equipment to do it, neither. The stasis pod he'd been in was only good for keepin' life going, not actually putting someone into stasis. That had to be done at a facility that was set up for that sort of thing.

Moving to stand next to the small bed that sat right smack in the middle of the medlab, Kaylee looked down at their newest passenger. Cute enough, she supposed, if you went for that almost goofy-lookin' sort. She brushed a piece of hair off of his forehead, just watching him. This had to be frightenin' for him. Waking up five hundred years in the future to find out his world didn't even exist anymore.

But, oh the stories he'd be able to tell when he was feelin' up to it! All about Earth-That-Was and why he'd been put in stasis to begin with. Things like that.

Things like... how he'd lost his eye?

She looked at the smooth leather patch that sat over the empty eye socket. Simon had said there were things that could be done for him now. Life-like prosthetics with actual functionality.

Would he want that?

Poor guy. Jerked out of his time and into theirs. It was almost like he'd come back from the dead. A real resurrection type of thing. That stasis pod had been his grave and he'd gotten right out of it like he'd just come back from the other side.

She took his hand in hers, studying it. Callouses on the fingers. Whatever he'd done back in his previous life, it hadn't been no book job. Maybe he'd lost his eye workin' on something? He could even be an engineer, like her, for all she knew. The kind that worked on whatever had counted for transportation back on Earth-That-Was.

Still, though, she doubted it. Fingernails were too clean. A real mechanic, no matter how hard they tried, never could get all of the dirt out from 'round their nails. And she'd tried real hard sometimes, too. But there was always a spot or two, hardly noticeable at all, that labeled her for what she was. Just a grease monkey.

"He's just like us," she murmured, mostly to herself.

Which is why she jumped a bit when Simon answered. She'd forgotten all about him being there!

"The people of Earth-That-Was were no different from us, Kaylee. Just less advanced."

A smile flitted across Kaylee's lips.

He was different from them, though.

A resurrected piece of the past.

Alexander Harris was a downright miracle.

x x x End Part x x x

Next Up:

"Now I know you're confused and all, bein' just woken up after sleepin' for so long, but don't you go insultin' me again like that, boy. I ain't no preacher."


	4. Space

Title: Space  
Series: Frozen in Time  
Author: Jinni  
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Joss Whedon, et al.  
Previous parts - http/ - 29 - Space - at joss100  
Claim: Kaylee/Xander

x x x 

Space.

The final frontier.

These are the voyages of the...

Xander stopped in mid-thought. What was this ship called? He hadn't asked that girl that. Kaylee, yeah that was her name. Hard to remember stuff with his head being all fuzzy from the stasis...stuff.

No, he'd stopped asking questions right about the time that she said he was five hundred years into the future and that he was on a spaceship.

Five...hundred... years.

He didn't want to think about that too long or closely, but his brain just wasn't letting go of it, either. Five hundred years...and Earth wasn't even around any more. Not from what she'd said when she got to babbling, trying to catch him up to date on what had gone on in five hundred years of history in one bashful breath, it seemed. It was cute in the way that Willow had been cute when she started running on at the mouth.

Was Willow one of the other...artifacts... that had survived? She'd been out cold the last he saw her. That was the only way in Hell the Council was going to be able to put her in stasis without her blowing them back to their makers. Knock her out from a distance, he assumed, and then keep her out until she was frozen.

He hoped she was okay, but knew, too, that it was naive of him to believe that everyone he had known and cared about had made it through centuries with him.

It was hard enough to believe that he had made it.

Someone moved in the room with him, but Xander didn't open his eyes. He didn't care if they knew he was awake or not, as long as he kept his eyes shut he could at least act like he was sleeping. Or ignoring them and this whacked out world he'd ended up in. Or both.

"How's he doin', Doc?"

That was the Captain of this...spaceship, if he was remembering the voice right from earlier in that cargo bay type place.

"Fine. Great, even," the doctor responded. "I am sure that he's going to be confused, however. Five hundred --"

"I ain't tryin' to think 'bout that right now, Doc," the Captain snapped. "Kaylee's done caused us a world of trouble, bumpin' into that stasis chamber and wakin' up the cargo."

Xander stiffened. He was a person, damnit. Not an artifact. Not a box of hardware. Not some cargo to be shipped from place to place!

Even if that was all that he'd been for hundreds of years.

"What's done is done," the doctor's tone suggested he wasn't too worried about the situation, something Xander found interesting.

"Right." Another sigh from the Captain. "Think he's going to go all...weird?"

"I think that he's going to have a hard time adjusting. Not to mention making a life for himself in a world he is hardly going to understand."

Well, that was one thing that Xander couldn't argue about. He didn't suppose that a world that was so advanced that they had spaceships was going to need a simple carpenter around. Maybe it was better when he was locked away in the stasis pod. At least there he was maintained, well kept. 

"The Farny sisters wanted me to deliver him, stasis or not."

"You didn't --"

"No, I didn't," the Captain continued, much to Xander's relief. "Didn't take no time a'tall to get the idea that they'd just put him on show like a freak. I told them that he was awake and breathin' and that he had the right to make his own decisions now."

"I don't imagine they liked that."

Neither did Xander. He could only imagine being told that a priceless artifact had been reduced to nothing more than a worthless human being that couldn't even be forced to tell stories about the 'old days'.

"No, they didn't. But they know better than to go arguin'. Ain't no court of law that's gonna say he has to allow himself to be put up like that and they know it. He's got the same rights as any of us. Probably more, given that we ain't exactly the cream of the society crop. Dong ma?"

Dong...ma? Eh?

"I'm not arguing, am I?"

Xander's nose chose that moment to start itching. He wiggled it as discreetly as he could, scrunching up his face as much as he dared. But the itch didn't go away. Slowly and as quietly as possible, he reached up and scratched it.

"Well, look at that. Don't suppose our guest is just fakin' sleeping, is he, Doc?"

Frowning, Xander cracked an eye to stare at the ceiling. "I just woke up?"

"Right. I s'pose you heard all that talk 'bout your future lack of captivity?" 

Gingerly, Xander rolled to his side, eyes shutting before he glimpsed much more than two sets of shoes standing near the bed, as a wave of dizziness washed over him.

"Easy," the doctor murmured, helping him to a sitting position. "You've been lying down for a long time --"

"And its going to take a while to get used to being up. I get that," Xander nodded, hesitantly opening his eyes.

What he saw there was like a repeat of his worst nightmare.

"Aaaghh!" He jerked back and away from Caleb with a force that upset his precarious balance, sending him tumbling over the reverse side of the medical bed and onto the floor - butt first. But even that pain wasn't enough to stop the fear. Nor the confused questions and cries coming from the two men. "You just stay away from me...crazy...preacher guy."

Caleb - who Xander assumed had to be the 'Captain' - tilted his head to the side and looked at him with something bordering on amusement.

"Now I know you're confused and all, bein' just woken up after sleepin' for so long, but don't you go insultin' me again like that, boy. I ain't no preacher."

Dead. Caleb was dead, Xander's brain reminded him belatedly. Buffy had slain Caleb and that meant - no more evil preacher guy.

Tack onto that the fact that Caleb had been killed over FIVE HUNDRED YEARS ago - and Xander felt like a first class doofus.

"You're not Caleb, are you?"

The Captain smiled tightly. "Can't say that I am. You sayin' there's another fellow out there with my handsome face?"

Xander shook his head. "Was. Dead now."

He reached up for the eyepatch almost instinctively, fingering the soft leathery edge.

"He did that? This Caleb?" the doctor asked. 

Nodding, Xander got to his knees, then slowly onto his feet - leaning against the bed for balance.

"Well - I ain't Caleb and I've got no mind to go 'bout maiming you - 'less you've got designs to be hurtin' me or my crew. Then we'd probably skip the maiming and go straight to the expiring, if you get my meaning." 

"Loud and clear," Xander nodded. He shivered, despite himself. This guy might not be Caleb, but he looked alot like him. It was enough to make him uncomfortable.

"I think that Alexander should lie back down now," the doctor quietly suggested.

Xander shot him a look of gratefulness, seeing the obvious attempt at getting the Captain away for what it was. "It's just Xander."

"Xander, then," the doctor nodded. "I'm Simon and that's the Captain."

"Malcolm Reynolds," the Captain declared, holding out his hand. Xander looked down at it. He'd seen those fingers far too up close for his comfort.

But that was five hundred years ago and this was not Caleb.

He shook the Captain's hand quickly and let go, resisting the urge to wipe his hand on something.

Not the same man.

He sure did look like Caleb, though.

"Xander needs to lie down," Simon repeated and Xander would have kissed him for it.

If he was the guy-kissing type.

He wasn't.

"Right. I'll be lettin' Kaylee know you're awake, then," the Captain offered with a shrug. "She'll be wantin' to talk your ears off about Earth-That-Was, I s'pose. Might as well get some stories out of you since you ain't worth nothin' as cargo no more."

"Sure," Xander nodded, easing back onto the little slab of a bed. "Stories I can do. All kinds of stories."

Were there vampires in the future, he wondered as he laid back down.

And what kind of questions was Kaylee going to have about Earth?

But, most of all, Xander just wanted a chance to talk to her some more about those other artifacts she'd mentioned.

He had to find them. His friends and 'family'. Whoever was still left, he owed it to them - and himself - to release them from their prisons.

And then together they could figure out what to do in this strange new world.

x x x Endx x x


End file.
